No-Code Automation: What It Is and Why You’ll Love It

Customer service automation reduces inefficiencies, proactively solves customer problems, and empowers your team to do more challenging yet rewarding work. So when it comes to automating customer support, nowadays it’s no longer a question of if you should do it, but how.

With countless no-code and low-code options out there, here’s why we think using a virtual agent designed with no-code automation is the best option for customer service teams.

No-code platforms are exactly what they sound like: tools that allow non-technical users to build applications without writing a single line of code. These types of solutions have a simple user interface, feature drag-and-drop elements, and do not require the help of a developer to build.

Low-code platforms require limited amounts of coding, and are an ideal way for developers to design applications quickly. However, if a low-code solution is being managed by non-technical users, they will often need to be familiar with programming languages or ask for IT resources to build or change anything within the application.

We recommended no-code automation platforms for customer support teams simply because it is more accessible. For example, the person setting up and training a virtual agent built for the purpose of customer service will likely be an expert in customer experience (as opposed to a developer). Since no-code platforms are designed to be visual, intuitive, and easy to use, non-technical users can master it easily, with no IT resources required.

Not only does this empower your team members to build and manage the application on their own, it means they have the opportunity to become AI specialists, which benefits their careers and benefits your retention and innovation.

What’s more, it will save your organization money in the long run since you don’t have to pay a developer to build it or a third-party vendor to manage it. The skills and expertise to run your application remains entirely in-house.

“With automation, we are able to kill several birds with one stone: customers get a higher-level support system, our agents are more valued than ever, and we are significantly cutting costs.”

- Janne Nieminen, Product Owner, Telia

Learn how Telia’s team has built a chatbot that saves the work of an 18-person team — or about 2,835 hours of agent effort — every month. Read the customer story.

If you’ve decided no-code automation is best for your support team, here are some questions to consider when choosing your virtual agent platform:

Who will build the virtual agent?

If your bot is being built by your vendor, it will be faster to set-up and less up-front work, however, it means that your team won’t know how intents are built out or how to make changes to the dialogue flows.

If your bot is designed by your in-house team, it takes a few weeks of work to learn how the platform works, but your team will know exactly what the bot is built to do and it’s super simple to make changes as you go.

Will the bot be built using your historical data?

Some companies use “industry standard” bots that are ready to be implemented immediately but use generic replies that aren’t customized to your brand or your processes. If your virtual agent platform analyzes your historical data to evaluate what your customers are really asking, you can determine what to automate first and highly customize your bot’s responses.

Can you train your virtual agent?

A set-it-and-forget-it model may sound appealing for its ease, but virtual agents that don’t have a way to improve or learn new intents will only be of limited use in the long term. When you train your AI model, your bot essentially gets smarter and more accurate, so therefore you can automate more and more processes.

How intuitive is the backend of the system?

Your agents are going to be working with this platform regularly, so it’s important to consider how easy it is to use. Some elements you might want to take a look at are how easy it is to train the bot to recognize new intents, and what the Dialogue Builder looks like (e.g. a decision tree might be easier than a list view if you have a lot of intents and dialogue flows).

Our platform is designed to be used by process experts not developers

• We know customer support teams are often strapped for resources, so we’ve designed our platform to be entirely no-code and we empower the people who are building your bot to become AI specialists

Each virtual agent is completely customized

• Your bot is built using your historical data from our CS Automation Explorer, so you know it’ll reflect your brand and processes

Training your AI model is easy

• You can continuously improve your bot with only a few hours of training every week in our Training Center

It’s visual and intuitive

• Ultimate’s virtual agent platform is designed to be easy to use, and many aspects of our Dialogue Builder and Training Center are “drag and drop”

We are obsessed with customer service

• We pride ourselves on being experts in the support industry, so you know we’ve built a tool that can give you what you’re looking for, and (depending on what plan you choose) we’ll provide support every step of the way with our stellar Customer Success team

“We’ve designed each step of the process to be entirely no-code. From analyzing your historical data with our Impact Report, to building flows in the Dialogue Builder, to improving and training your bot in the Training Center, our product revolves around making it easy for our customers to use.”

- Michał Mischker, Senior Product Manager at Ultimate